"Hogan, James P - The Genesis Machine p260-end" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

The visitors inspected the battery of accelerators and massive electromagnets inside which the beam originated and followed the transmission tube, wreathed in its elaborate sheath of coils and coolant pipes, that conveyed it into the sphere of the J-reactor itself—there to be somehow squeezed by forces they were unable to comprehend out of the very universe. The party’s mood grew somber. Hardened as these men were by daily exposure to the harsh realities of systematically engineered methods of mass destruction, they found themselves daunted and apprehensive as the full meaning of the things they saw on every side percolated through to their understanding.
Finally they saw the “brain” by which the entire operation of this awesome ensemble was coordinated and directed—the computer room where the three mighty BIACs ( mighty in performance, that is; each machine occupied just two six-foot-high cabinets) presided over several hundred assorted slave processors and cubicle after cubicle of attendant electronics.
The operation of every component and subsystem that went to make up this aggregate was controlled ultimately from a single nerve center designated simply CONTROL ROOM. Here where all the data and control channels from every part of the vast machine were finally brought together in tiers of instrument panels and monitor screens, and where the command interface with the BIACs was situated. From here, every facet of system operation—control of the reactors and generator banks, beam modulation, target identification and location, direction of the fire-control computers—was orchestrated by just two human operators. The Control Room could, in an emergency, be sealed off from the inside, and with it the critical sections of the weapons system. Thus, regardless of what went on in other parts of the Brunner
mont complex, unimpaired operation of. Jericho could be guaranteed at any time.
The raised gallery that gave access to the Control Room looked down over the panorama of the Operational Command Floor—the new war room of the Western Democratic Alliance. In this brightly illuminated setting of communications consoles and thickly carpeted surgical cleanliness, enormous mural displays presented the global picture that was revealed from the combined inputs of a network of orbital and ground-based surveillance systems, the interconnected radar and early-warning chains of a score of nations, high-flying robot drones above the Siberian tundra and the Gobi Desert, and ships dotted all the way from Spitsbergen to the Ross Sea. From these surroundings of superficial calm and tranquillity, the integrated war machine of the Western powers could be unleashed in minutes. This was where the men from Washington and the observers sent by the governments of Europe, Russia, Australia, and Japan eventually assembled to see the end-product of Jericho in action.
Clifford and Aub had taken up their positions inside the Control Room, leaving Morelli to attend to the guests. While Morelli was describing the various facilities that were available on the Operational Command Floor, they put the system through a routine checkout drill. Everything was working fine.
The first item on the agenda was a demonstration of the resolving power of the Mark III detector to show how it was used for target registration; also it would give the spectators an insight to the meaning of dynamic real-time control via BIAC interaction between the operator and the machine.
“Just to recap for a moment on some of the things I said earlier, every piece of matter in the universe gives rise to hi-radiation that appears instantly at
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every point in space.” Morelli spoke in a loud to make sure that his words carried to the back crowd of attentive faces arrayed before him. at this moment, hi-radiation is pervading this r radiation that is being generated in the mass of on the Sun, in Jupiter, in every star in our gala:
every galaxy in the universe.” He turned sb take in the fascinated expressions all around.
“This hi-radiation that originates from object and small, near and far, can be made to proi measurable response by means of the instrume. you have just seen. The intensity of this radiatic off rapidly with distance from its source, in s’ its traveling instantly between points in oi space, but it does carry information from whi tam characteristics of the source object can be structed. The amount of information that from each source also becomes less the farthei the source is.
“This means that although the detector in receives hi-wave information from every object universe at the same time, in practice the 2 that is contributed from beyond comparatively distances . . . at our present state of the art, a of hundred thousand miles or so . . . is so sm~ you can neglect it. There are exceptions to th~ instance the Sun and some other bodies appe normally ‘bright’ for their distance—but by an what I’ve said is true. Any questions so far?”
“Just one.” The speaker was a tall, swarth wearing the uniform of a Vice Marshal of the States of Europe Air Force. “If I remember co:
you said earlier that this hi-radiation that exists where gives rise to conventional background by a process which, I believe, you called ‘sec interactions.’ This background is immeasurabl)
even on Earth, because by astronomical standards Earth is really very tiny.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“Fine. Does this mean then that near other, much more massive astronomical bodies, you would see greater amounts of background radiation . . . ones that were readily measurable?”
“Precisely so, and it does happen,” Morelli responded. “In fact, the black holes in space have very intense radiation halos. This could never be explained by classical physics, and was one of the things that led to k-theory being recognized in the first place.”
“I see. Thank you.”
There were no further questions, so Morelli resumed his lecture. “The detector, then, responds to hi-waves that originate, to all intents and purposes exclusively, from objects situated in the nearby regions of space. Now, by using very sophisticated computerprocessing techniques, we are able to extract from the information they carry, sufficient data to single out one portion of the composite hi-wave signal . . . we can zoom in, if you will, on any region that we care to select out of the whole volume in space that the total signal is coming from. Within limits, that region can be as large or as small as we like. Moreover, from the information that we have extracted, we can derive spacelike solutions to the equations involved, which enable internal and external visual representations of the selected object to be constructed.”
“Another question, Professor Morelli,” a voice called from the back.
“Yes?”
“What are the limits that you mentioned? What range of sizes of object can you resolve?”
“At the small end it gets worse the farther away the object is . . . also, don’t forget, what we’re really see2A~
ing is a measure of the difference in mass-~ between the object and its surroundings. We’ looking at any kind of optically generated im~ you won’t see normal visual contrasts and
What you will see are contrasts in density.
“But to answer your question—if you swalic .22 caliber lead bullet, we could pick it up if yo standing a mile away. For an object sitting other side of the world—somewhere in the sc Indian Ocean, say—if it were solid steel stand in air, we could go down to a size of, aw, 1 twenty-five feet. So, you see, we could identify
“At the big end, well, we’re only limited by fective range of the detector itself . . . in other its sensitivity, since the signals from places ti farther away get smaller. But as I said earbiet are some quite strong radiators a long way aw until about a year ago we did start to make r of things such as the Sun—nothing detailed, saw were smudges—but that was with an model of the detector. The one we’ve got here do a lot better, but I guess we’ve been too 1 with other things to bother much about taking ther.”
A muttering of interest arose as some of the F realized for the first time the full potency of t tern, if only as a means of surveillance, neve as a weapon.
“Let’s now have a look at some of the thu been talking about,” Morelli said. He gestur ward toward one of the huge screens above th “This screen is coupled to slave off of the mair monitor display in the Control Room. On it y see an enlarged copy of what the BIAC opera project on to his own console. Ready, Brad?” dressed his last words to Clifford, who, he km

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following events on one of the monitor screens in the Control Room.
“Ready.” Clifford’s voice came over the loudspeaker system above the Command Floor. An auxiliary screen, set below and to one side of the main display, showed the two operators in the room above.
“I’ll hand the demonstration over to Bradley Clifford at this point, then,” Morelli informed the group. “Brad, over to you. I’ll leave you to do your own commentating. Okay?”
“Okay.” Almost at once the main display came to life to show the hazy but unmistakable outline of a ship. It was positioned roughly halfway up the screen and was shown broadside; its bulk could be seen clearly floating in the ghostly haze produced by the water. “I’ve been tracking this ship for the past few minutes now, while Al was talking,” Clifford’s voice announced. “It’s in the eastern part of the North Atlantic, between the Azores and the Bay of Biscay. If you want the exact position it is fifteen degrees thirtysix minutes west, forty-two degrees ten minutes north, course two hundred sixty-one degrees, speed thirty-five knots. From the general outline it’s obviously a fairly large carrier, almost certainly one that’s involved in the exercises being held in that area this week. If you watch closely, you will see a small dot rise from the left-hand end from time to time. These are aircraft being launched at this instant . . . there goes one now.”
The audience had been well prepared with what to expect, but even so, gasps of astonishment and surprise rose around the floor.
“If I close in a little . . .“ the shape rapidly enlarged,

:‘you should just be able to make out details of the internal structure. In particular, note the brighter parts
midships and toward the stern. These are the densest parts of the structure—the engines and propulsion ma
chinery. You may be able to see also just the f~ hairlines of brightness inside the midships
room. I’m pretty sure that the vessel is ni powered and that those are fuel rods in its rc Note also the pinpoints in several compartmen ther forward—probably fissile material contair nuclear warheads that are parts of weapons mi in the ship’s armory.”
The effect upon the watchers of actually bein to gaze inside a ship sailing on the high seas thousand miles away was overwhelming. To
they just stood and stared as coherent speech ri to come to their lips. Clifford’s lazy, matterdrawl seemed only to add somehow to the effect.
“Another aircraft is just taking off. This tim follow it.” A finger of pale orange, larger than th seen previously because of the enlarged vie’~ tached itself from the bow of the carrier. Thc closed in on the aircraft and the ship slid rapi( the bottom edge of the screen. It seemed to around in space as the viewpoint altered to prc from all angles, finally zooming in to reveal the tapered nose and triangular wings.
“Again, the engines show up more distinctivel’ the rest of the structure,” Clifford commented. it doesn’t show up on the screen but I can see tI the BIAC a slightly darker cone extending bac1~ the tail. That is the result of the bower density exhaust gases. From the data contained in that p we could compute the running temperature of t gines and make a fair guess as to what kind the~ He allowed them a few more seconds to watch th climbing aircraft before speaking again.
“You will have noticed that we are manag track steadily a target that is now moving quit What may not be apparent is that this is all
done completely automatically, without requiting any kind of continuous participation by either of us in here. When I made the decision to follow this target aircraft, I issued a command to the BIAC to lock on and track, using procedural routines that it has already learned. At this moment neither I nor my colleague here, Aubrey Philipsz, is interacting or communicating with the system in any way whatsoever. But as you can see, the target is being tracked and displayed faithfully.”